


the knife cuts both ways (now I just keep you warm)

by WeWalkADifferentPath



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Idiots in Love, Literally just writing a continuation of book 2 since I can't wait for 3, M/M, Mutual Pining, Penelope Bunce is a Good Friend, Post-Canon Fix-It, Shephard is.. there for some reason, Simon Snow is terrible at words, Slow Burn, Some Humor, Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch Is Gay for Simon Snow, but Simon and Baz don't, thats fine, they both are, well we know why
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:07:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29120943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeWalkADifferentPath/pseuds/WeWalkADifferentPath
Summary: I-- Tyrannus Basilton Pitch-- am 100% desperately in love with Simon Snow, and 100% desperately certain that that isn’t enough to keep him.
Relationships: Penelope Bunce & Simon Snow, Penelope Bunce & Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch, Penelope Bunce & Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch & Simon Snow, Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch & Simon Snow, Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Kudos: 14





	the knife cuts both ways (now I just keep you warm)

**Author's Note:**

> hey y'all, it's my first fic for this fandom! yeehaw. if you're seeing this because you're waiting for my TUA/Shadowhunters fic to update, just imagine me scuttling by in big shades and a hoodie like I'm dodging small talk at a late-night convenience store run (but I love you! I'm sorry! It'll come!) 
> 
> If you're new to my writing... I have an irrational love for song-based titles. This one's from T-Swift's Long Story Short which you should listen to and think about snow and baz if you want to cry. 
> 
> ok, steady on we go!

**Baz  
  
**

“Why can’t you see that I wouldn’t be happy anywhere without you?”  
  
That’s what I’d said to him. Right before Bunce had come bounding in with her big announcement of trouble, utterly smashing the moment to bits. Not that I blame her for that—it was a necessary casualty.

My treacherous, selfish heart is actually kind of glad that she’d interrupted. It wasn’t looking like Simon was going to say anything that I’d want to hear anyways.

Damn him. Damn us.

All of that time at Watford, all that time that we were growing up together, I was always been made up of exactly two things—50% of me was devoted to being irrevocably, pathetically, entirely devoted to Simon Snow, and the other 50% of me was kicking myself for it.

Now, though, now that’s changed. I’m not 50% of anything—I’m two whole pieces at once, both thrashing and twisting against each other in my tender heart every second of every day, like ill-shaped puzzle pieces attached to the hoods of two cars that are about to cause a bloody wreck.

(Is that dramatic? I think I’m entitled to a titch, all things considered).

I-- Tyrannus Basilton Pitch-- am 100% desperately in love with Simon Snow, and 100% desperately certain that that isn’t enough to keep him.

  
  


**Simon  
  
**

“Why can’t you see that I wouldn’t be happy anywhere without you?  
  
He’d yelled it, like a secret that he couldn’t hold in anymore. Like something that he wasn’t sure he was allowed to say.

 _I_ hadn’t been sure what I was allowed to say back to him, after that.

I just don’t understand how it’s true. I _know_ that it’s not true. Baz could be happy anywhere. Baz is—he’s capable, and smart, and, well, charming, in his way, isn’t he? When he wants to be.

He’d certainly impressed Lamb.

He could be happy here in America, I know that he could. Happier.  
  
I just don’t understand why he can’t _see_ that.  
  
  
\--  
  


Penny had told us that she’d tell us what the bad news was on the way. _“There’s no time, Simon! Let’s go!”_

I’m not really sure what ‘on the way’ meant, though, seeing as we’re already halfway to the airport and she still hasn’t said a thing. (Well, to be fair, she’s said plenty of things—like “It’s fine, Baz, we just need to go,” and “for Merlin’s sake, Simon, don’t worry about your tail, just start _packing_ ”—but nothing about what’s going on at Watford.)  
  
A lump sits heavily in my chest. I can’t shake it out, no matter how many times I try to breathe through it.

This—this rescuing thing, this jumping into trouble thing, this _hero_ thing—feels different now already. Now that I’ve admitted to myself that I’m not one anymore.

But it’s not like I really have a choice but to go along with whatever this is. Penny and Baz are my only ride home, and I can’t stay in America.  
  
Plus, there’s still... Baz and I have some things to work out. Once and for all.

He’s sitting in back with me again, this time without his mother’s scarf on. It’s in his pocket, I think. No shades, either. He looks bare without them on, nearly naked, and I can’t look him straight in the face, which is another new thing that’s come out of those few minutes on the beach.

He catches me not looking and his expression gentles. I turn and look out the window.

“So, Bunce, what’s the grand danger that we’re waltzing into this time?” he asks.

Penny is staring at Shephard’s GPS system, seemingly trying to shake it into finding a faster route. I’m not really sure why Shephard’s even still here. She glances up at the mirror.  
  
“I’m not sure. Just—something is wrong. At Watford.”  
  
“You’re not sure?” Baz raises an eyebrow; I only catch the tail end of it before turning back to the window.

“My mum called. She knows about us, where we are. But she sounded... I can’t explain it, but I know something is wrong. It sounded like she was trying to say goodbye.”  
  
“Are you sure she’s not just disowning you?” Baz asks. I poke him in the shoulder with my wing without looking.

Penny’s voice sounds like she’s frowning. “She could be. Probably is. But it was more than that. She didn’t even yell at me at all. She told me—she told me to stay here, a little longer. In America.”  
  
“And we’re ignoring that,” Shephard says, like it’s a question. I snort, and I can feel Baz’s eyes on me. “Do you think she’s in danger?”  
  
“I thought we took the danger with us,” I say, gesturing toward myself. “We usually do.”  
  
Plus, the Mage is dead, so there’s that. And the Hum Drum is gone. What other threat could there possibly be?  
  
Penny catches my eye in the mirror with a sharp look as if reading my mind. “There are plenty of threats in the world.”  
  
“I know that.”  
  
“So what’s our plan?” Baz asks. “Illegally switch to an earlier plane, burst back to Watford, and what? See if there is any danger?”  
  
“Pretty much,” Penny says, like the matter is decided, and I guess pretty much it is.

  
**Baz  
  
**

Simon looks miserable. Twitchy. Or at least, I can imagine that he would, if he would spare me so much as a glance.

It should comfort me, in a twisted way, how familiar I am with the slope of his shoulders, with the ways in which his body talks for him more than he knows how to with words (not like he’s an idiot—well, he _is—_ but. He doesn’t exactly have a knack for talking, does he?). But all I can think about is that car ride into the desert with his wings poking into me at every turn and bend.

This time, he doesn’t look like Simon Snow riding toward danger. He looks like Simon Snow sitting _next_ to danger.  
  
I guess that’s me, then.

It’s quiet most of the way to the airport. Even Shephard hardly blathers on about anything, focused as he is on driving as quickly as possible without making a scene or steering us into a ditch. I’m sure Penelope would like him to drive faster, but we can’t risk getting noticed or pulled over.

I wish I could reach out and take Simon’s hand. He may be Simon Snow sitting next to danger but he’s also still Simon Snow in America, at least for a little while longer. Still sun-kissed and in blue jeans, staring out at the passing scenery like it’s a gift just for him.

I wanted him to look at _me_ like that, out on that beach. Or at least not like something that’s itching for a fight.

I don’t think touching him would help. Touching Simon always feels like he’s giving something to _me_ and not the other way around. Like letting himself be touched by me is painful for him.

Maybe it is.

We head through the airport quickly. Bunce has charmed our tickets for an earlier flight. Simon looks like he wants to run again when we get to security, but Bunce spelled his wings away in the car and we all get through without so much as a pat-down.

There’s barely a wait at the gate and none of us use it to talk. I almost ask why Shephard is coming with us, but frankly, I don’t care. He seems a nice enough bloke and he’s certainly saved our sorry arses enough times for me to concede to a plane ticket, for whatever reason that he wants one.

He and Penelope keep sharing significant looks and I know that Simon has noticed it too and I know that it’s bothering him but he doesn’t ask either.

Simon Snow in America.

  
  
  
**Simon  
  
**

We get to our seats on the plane and I—

Crowley, I haven’t thought this through at all, have I?  
  
Baz nudges me with the back of his wrist. “Go on, Snow.”  
  
I stare at our seats, which seem like they’re designed to be specifically the last thing on earth that I want right now.

“Sorry,” Penelope says, sliding across the aisle and down a ways with Shephard in tow, “I didn’t know it would be such a tight fit. We can switch, if you want?”  
  
“Yes,” I say at the same time that Baz says, “it’s fine.”  
  
It is absolutely, definitely, 1000% not fine.  
  
Our seats are nearest to the bathroom, and it looks like some kind of joke on behalf of the airline. Two squashed, faded little seats shoved right up against the window, with no seats directly across the aisle because the bathroom hangs out just a little bit, pushing that row forward.  
  
They are literally the smallest, most private seats on the entire plane. Possibly on any plane, ever. And I’m meant to be sharing them with Baz.

Penny sends us a look over her shoulder, but crawls into her seat in front of Shephard anyways. I turn and stare at Baz’s nose. “We can’t sit here.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“It’s—“ My heart stutters. “It’s too cramped.”  
  
Baz wrinkles his nose. “I’m taller than you. And I’m pretty sure these are regulation size, they just appear smaller because of the... less scenic positioning.”  
  
“You’ll be uncomfortable.”  
  
“I’ll be fine, Snow. Now go on in and buckle up.”  
  
“Won’t you hear everything in the bathroom?”  
  
Baz grimaces. He nudges me forward with his wrist again. “I shared a bathroom with you for years, I’m quite sure that I can handle it.”  
  
And Crowley, if that doesn’t send some heat up to my ears. It hadn’t actually occurred to me that Baz could hear everything that I was doing in our bathroom, really everything, the entire time that we bunked together.

That’s—nope, that’s a door that I’m firmly sealing off.  
  
Baz smirks a little, like he can tell what I’m thinking. Then reaches across me to grab for my seatbelt. A jolt of his cool skin touches my bare arm and I pull back like it burns.  
  
“Relax, I’m just trying to make sure you’re buckled up.”  
  
“We’ve been over this. I have wings.”  
  
“We have been over this. You don’t, currently, do you?”  
  
I fidget. The buckle clicks in, and then Baz secures his own.  
  
“Relax, Snow, planes are very safe.”  
  
“I know.” _I’m not sure that I am.  
  
_“And I would protect you, if anything were to happen.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
_What if it’s you that I need protecting from?_

_What if it’s me?_

  
**Baz**

  
Snow watches a film on the little television just like he did on the way here. Only this time it’s with much less enthusiasm. He keeps darting a glance toward me every time he comments on something in the film as if I’m going to judge him for judging the quality of Hollywood’s less-than-finest choreographed fight scenes.

I’m much less enthusiastic this time around, too. We’re pressed pretty well shoulder to ankle but unlike last time, I don’t try to lean into it.

Watching Snow jerk away from me like a hot iron once in one day is plenty enough for me, thanks.

When the food cart rolls around, I stare straight at Simon in an attempt to get his attention instead of nudging him. He pulls out an earphone. “What?”

“You hungry?” I’m surprised he hasn’t already noticed the cart coming our way—he’s like a bloody bloodhound when it comes to food.  
  
He swivels his head around, looking for the cart. “What’ve they got?”  
  
I lean out into the aisle. “Snacks, mostly. Some wraps.” The flight attendant is about three aisles up, passing off a debit machine to a man with one of those enormous sleep masks pushed up onto his forehead.  
  
“Sandwiches?”  
  
“Wraps are sandwiches.”  
  
Snow looks genuinely offended. “They are _not._ ”  
  
I shrug. “Well, there are wraps. No sandwiches, then.”  
  
He pouts. “Pretzels?”  
  
I roll my eyes. “You’re insatiable. I’ll ask.”  
  
As it turns out, they do have pretzels, but I have to wave the woman down rather dramatically in order to get her to notice us stuck here in the corner. She seems surprised to see us here. I don’t blame her.  
  
“And some wraps as well,” I add. “Unless you have sandwiches?”  
  
She frowns. “Wraps are sandwiches.”  
  
“They are _not._ ” _  
  
_I smile. “Ignore my companion. Two wraps, please. Anything with meat. And a coke. And a milk, if you could.”  
  
She gives me a bit of side-eye while handing over the milk, but makes no complaint as I pull out a stack of cash to pay her with. I leave a generous tip. She stutters when she notices it.  
  
“I—thank you, sir. Have a good flight.”  
  
“You as well,” I tell her, depositing the second wrap over into Simon’s lap. He gawks at it.  
  
“Do you always have to sound like you’re in a posh upscale club?” he asks me.  
  
I raise my eyebrow. “Would you prefer that I didn’t?”

His ears are pink. “No. It’s—I didn’t know anyone could sound that cool while ordering a glass of milk.”  
  
I allow myself a bit of a smile. Truly, I hadn’t done anything impressive; I was even speaking casually to her, and it’s not as though the tip was real money. Simon has seen me far cooler than this. But if this is what makes him look at me again, then I’ll order a farm’s worth.

In a moment of courage, I take his hand. He follows it with his eyes, and something strange and sad darkens over his face.

“That waitress fancied you, I think,” he says. I scoff.  
  
“The flight attendant?” _Is that what you’re worried about?_ “Hardly. She’s in her twenties, Snow.”  
  
“You’re twenty.”  
  
“Surely I’m not her type.” It’s not even self-deprecating. Yes, Bunce has spelled me halfway to sideways in the last twenty-four hours, but I’m still looking worse for wear. And I haven’t eaten anything since I drained that cow on our way back to the hotel. My hair is tangled and greasy and I’m dressed for the plane, in just a jumper and some jeans.

I’ve heard that some women are into gothic, unhealthy-looking, homosexual rock and roll singers, but I can’t imagine that it’s most of them.

“You’re everyone’s type,” Simon mutters petulantly.

This feels like a moment where I should tease him a bit, say something like ‘ _even yours?’_ and squeeze his hand, but I can’t make myself do it; not when there feels like a higher than usual chance that he’ll say no.

“Well it’s not like _she’s_ my type. Don’t be daft.” I say. It’s meant to hold some fondness, but it comes out sarcastically, cutting. That’s fine.

Easier, even.

_Take the bait, Simon._

He pulls his hand back out of mine. “I need to piss,” he says, rising already. “Scoot out of the way.”  
  
I don’t get up. Instead I lean backward in my chair, forcing him to brush past me to get into the aisle. It’s a pathetic move, I’m secure enough to admit, but it keeps him close to me for just a moment longer.

  
  


**Simon  
  
**

The rest of the flight drags on.

Baz doesn’t sleep this time. He picks at his wrap and then silently passes the rest to me, even though he must be starving.

I guess that I doze off at one point because I wake blurrily, confused, with one arm tossed over the divider and resting on Baz’s thigh. I crack an eye open and see him carefully not looking at it, like it’s a snake that he’s passing in the wild.

I leave it there a beat longer, and then snatch it back too fast. “Sorry.”  
  
“Don’t be.”  
  
I wait for him to take the easy opening to slag me off— _“You should be sorry for making me listen to the sounds of a dying cow for the last 20 minutes, Snow. You snore like an old man”_ – but he doesn’t, and despite the sleep, I can’t call up the energy to goad him into it.

I should be thinking of Penny. I should be thinking about how worried she must be.

I should be sitting next to her, holding her hand, waiting for her to tell me the plan and promising her that I’ll get done whatever needs doing (it’s not that easy anymore though is it?).

But I’m a shit friend, apparently, because all I’m thinking about is that stupid flight attendant.

It’s not that I think that Baz actually fancies her—he’s told me that he’s gay, and while it’s taken some processing (though not too much, after the floral suits, and the snogging), I do believe him.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. But seeing her smile at him, as he looked down his nose at her—not in a rude way, just how he looks at people-- clamped down on something in my stomach.

It’s the same way I felt seeing him with Agatha.

With Lamb.

_Is this jealousy?_

It doesn’t feel like that. It feels like something darker. Something more pathetic.

I shouldn’t have said anything to him about it.

The problem is _me,_ not him. And now he’s looking at me like he doesn’t know who I am. Like I might bite _him._

\--

We get through the other end of the airport easily, with no luggage to wait for. Baz and Penny go off together to find us a rental car or a cab, and I imagine Baz flirting with the employee, convincing him to hand over the keys to two twenty year olds with no luggage and no clear timeline for when the car will be returned.

The come back and lead us to a cab.

Penny and Baz bicker a bit about where to send the driver; Baz thinks it’ll be safer to spend the night at or place first and head for Watford in the early morning, and of course, Penny wants to go straight there as fast as magickally possible.

Baz wins.

We head for home.

Baz hasn’t stayed at our place in ages. At first, in the beginning, he slept in my bed with me, and then later he slept in my bed without me and I slept on the couch. Then I stopped asking him to stay at all.

Now he seems unsure where he’s meant to go. Shephard falls onto the couch easily enough without asking anyone about it and Penny gives my hand a tight, worried squeeze before heading to her room to stew. I could follow her in there—she won’t sleep anyways, not until we’ve made sure her mum’s alright—and make it easy on Baz.

But I have to change. And find something for Baz to wear to bed (does he sleep naked when he’s alone in the summers? The thought is... a lot right now). So I grit my teeth and head toward the bedroom.

And Baz—hesitates.

Snakes. Merlin. Fuck.

“Come on, then,” I tell him. He looks up, startled for a moment before he smooths his face over into neutral.

He follows me wordlessly. I rifle through my drawers without turning the light on. I throw a t-shirt and a pair of shorts behind me in a ball and I can hear him catch it, the _schwoop_ as he snatches it out of the air just a little too fast to be human.

“What’s this?”

“For sleeping. It’s not like you have anything clean here.”

Baz doesn’t leave anything at our place.

I can practically hear the wrinkle in his nose. “I’m not sleeping in this.”  
  
“It’s a t-shirt, Baz. You’ll be fine.”

“I’d rather be back in the coffin.”  
  
I huff out a laugh. “Would you rather sleep in your knickers?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then get changed. You can shower too, if you’d like.”

I turn back around to see Baz shrugging out of his own shirt, holding up the one I’d thrown him and examining it dubiously. His black hair is a bit stringy, and there are deep circles under his eyes. He’s still covered in faint bruises and scars, his ribcage peeking through his thin pale skin. I look away.  
  
“Do you need to eat?” I ask, feeling like a proper idiot for not having remembered sooner.

But he shakes his head. “I’ll be fine.”  
  
“That’s not an answer.”  
  
“I’m good, Snow.”  
  
“You haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

“Are _you_ hungry? Is that what this is?”

I cross my arms and frown at him. “I’m always hungry. But I’m asking about you, Baz.”

“Why?”

The way he asks has me drawing in a little breath.

“Because I—because—“  
  
“I told you I wouldn’t ever bite you.”  
  
“That’s not the point!”  
  
“Then what _is_ the point, Snow?” He sounds properly frustrated now for the first time in a long time. Not like when we normally fight. More like when we used to fight. Like when I disgusted him for even existing.

But that’s not entirely true, is it? He told me before that he’d wanted me all that time. The thought makes my head spin and I brush it to the side.

“I want you to be healthy,” I finally say, and it’s true, at least. He narrows his eyes at me. I stare at his shoes.

“I’ll hunt in the morning,” he says, voice steady and final, and I nod, feeling somehow like I’ve been chastised.

“Do you want—I’ll grab extra pillows and blankets for the floor. You take my bed.”

Something new flashes across his face, something that I can’t read. He nods, once, and then flips on his heel and walks to the bathroom to change.

  
  


**Baz  
  
**

When I get back, after dousing my hair in the sink and rinsing my mouth out with Penny’s mouthwash, Snow is on the floor as promised.

I can’t stop myself from staring at him in the dark as I cross the room. He’s closed the curtains so it’s nearly black in here, and I tell myself that it isn’t breaking this strange stalemate we have if he can’t see me looking.

I don’t sleep much. I don’t think he does, either.

I get up before dawn to hunt, and when I’m halfway out the door I hear Simon shift. For a second I freeze, thinking that he might offer to come with me, prepared to turn him down. But he doesn’t and I go alone.

In a half an hour I’ve drained several birds, feeling nauseated and self-conscious but sturdier when I go back up to the room.

Simon pretends to sleep.

I fall easily into our most familiar arrangement with each other: we lie in the dark, not talking, and listen to each other breath.

  
\--  
  


I wake to a pillow in the face. “Up and at ‘em!” Penny shouts.

She flicks on the overhead light. The blinds are still closed, and before I even sit up, I can tell that Simon’s not here. I must’ve been more tired than I thought.

“Our train to Watford leaves in forty-five minutes,” Penny declares. She tucks a stray fuzz of her brown hair up behind her ear. She looks worse than I must. “I hope you’ve eaten already.”

I raise an eyebrow at her, although it comes out less impressively than usual, I’m sure, as I’m still squinting to adjust to the light. “You just woke me up.”

“Yeah, well, I heard you leave this morning. Did you get enough?”

“Blood, yes. Breakfast, no.” It’s still strange to be asked about my eating habits. (What a way to word it, too. Eating habits. As if I’m on a gluten-free kick and not snatching birds out of their nests to suck dry).

“Well hurry up, then. I’m not letting us be late.”

I open my mouth to make a snide remark and then think better of it. Penny’s hands are clenched at her sides, her nails bitten down to the nub. I can see her phone poking out of her pocket, the screen dark.

“Did you sleep at all last night?”

“Yes.” She wavers, then sighs. “Maybe.”

“Do you really think something is happening at Watford? What did Professor Bunce actually say?”

Penny begins pacing, carving a line right through where Simon set up his bed last night. “That everything was fine there. That we would talk when I got back about our _transgressions_ —“ she winces—“but that maybe that shouldn’t be for another couple of weeks. That maybe I should stay in America a little longer. Then she said that she had to go.”

“Are you absolutely positive that she’s not just angry with us for pulling what we did? We expected to be in trouble, Bunce.”

Penny shakes her head, halting her pacing. “No. I—I can’t explain it, but she sounded... worried, not angry. Wouldn’t you know if your father called and was in trouble?”

“Probably not. He’d never let on.”

She blows out a breath. “Yeah, well, my mum wouldn’t either. I think she was trying to be casual. But we have to check. I need to know.”

I reach for her hand. “Of course.”

She stares at our clasps hands, then frowns. “Are you and Simon okay? I expected he’d come to my room last night.”

I want to laugh, with how astute she is. Only she would recognize that Snow _not_ leaving my sight spelled trouble more than distance would.

“Both of us were a bit up our own arses yesterday.”

“I noticed. What did you say to him?”  
  
“Why do you assume it was me?”

She rolls her eyes. “Like Simon could say anything that would put you off of him.”

And okay, ouch, that hits a fair bit closer to home than I would’ve liked. “Am I really that transparent?”

“Hopelessly.” She smiles. “To everyone but Simon.”

Trust Bunce to put her finger right on the crux of the problem.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :)


End file.
